by Ross Jeffery
The carpet’s rough. Its bristly nibs bite into my skin. Can’t breathe, my father splayed out on top of me, his full weight baring down, choking the oxygen from my lungs. Muscles burn, cramp throttles my calf, a snake coiling around a tree trunk. But still he pushes me to the carpet. Sweat covers us. We are two slick eels, a couple of greased up Greco wrestlers.
He presses his club sized hand down against the side of my head. The stench of sawdust and Bensons and Hedges, his rough hands, like sandpaper, set about rubbing away, robbing me of my youth, forever powerless, eternally put in my place. I can feel his short index finger worming its way into my ear. He’d lost it to a sanding belt accident – the stub, both grotesque but mesmerising all at once.
He dips his head lower as I flail. Can’t rid myself of his ballast. His breath at my neck, the heat of his panting, the noisome reek of roast dinner stuck between his teeth and the sour, musty smell of beer. His body loosened. A chance to escape. I move but his powerful body springs into action, slamming me back into the carpet, a million bristles stabbing. Submission. We’ve a safe word. But I don’t dare utter it. This time will be different. I’m sure of it.
His hands all over me, grabbing my wrists, holding my legs down, pressing my face against the floor, subduing my efforts at escape with ease, a thousand-armed tormentor. Finally, he straddles me. I let him. His huge hands splayed out across my shoulders. Pinning me down. He leans in again. Dragging with him the oniony ripe notes of body odour.
‘Say it…’ he utters.
I try to wriggle free again, but it’s pointless, there’s nothing I can do. His hand lets go of my shoulder, grabs the back of my neck. Don’t know how long I’ve tried to fight it. I feel weak. I’m a boy and he’s a man. A sapling crushed beneath a mighty oak tree — what can I do?
‘Tell me…’ he says, his breathing ragged.
He’s lying on top of me. I’m cloaked in a menacing shadow. He grabs one of my wrists, it burns.
‘Say it!’ he snarls. Breaks into a mocking laugh.
I surrender. Let it happen. ‘Uncle,’ I say. ‘Uncle… I give up!’
Ross Jeffery is a Bristol based writer and Executive Director of Books at STORGY Magazine. Ross has been published in print with STORGY Books, Project 13 Dark and Shlock Magazine. He has also been published in many online zines including Ellipsis, About Magazine TX, Soft Cartel, Idle Ink and many others. His debut Novella Juniper will be published by STORGY Books in December 2019. Ross lives in south Bristol with his wife (Anna) and two children (Eva and Sophie).
You can follow him on Twitter here @Ross1982
Author website – https://writerrossjeffery.wordpress.com/